The main requirement for the seminar is a
substantial and original paper. I would expect the typical paper to
be in the 5000-10,000 word range--but content is more
important than size. Some of the better papers from past years are
webbed here. Papers are due
on the last day of exam period, but I expect students to hand in a
draft several weeks earlier for comments.

There are at least four sorts of paper that I
would consider appropriate.

1. A paper on a legal system very different from
ours that has not been covered in the course. It should include a
bibliography with adequate references on that system, an explanation
of how it worked, and some discussion of why it had the
characteristics it had--what function at least some of its legal
rules served. Ideally, such a paper would make it possible for me to
add that system to the course the next time I teach it. Get a draft
of the paper in sufficiently early and we may use it this semester.

2. A paper on one of the systems covered that goes
into much more depth than we do in class. That means finding
additional sources and mining them. It might also mean arguing that
some of my description and/or analysis was wrong--with evidence to
support the argument.

3. A paper that looks at one or more legal issues
running through a variety of different legal systems. Obviously the
paper has to go well beyond what we cover in the class discussion.

4. A paper using ideas from the systems we have
covered to suggest, explain, and defend substantial modifications to
our legal system.

To help students who want to do the first sort of
paper, which is for obvious reasons the one I most want to see, some
possible places to look are:

The anthropological literature on primitive
societies. You might start with the book by Hoebel that is in the
class reading list--it covers a number of societies we don't, and
contains lots of references.

The literature on non-state mechanisms for dispute
settlement. Lisa Bernstein at the University of Chicago has done a
good deal of work on modern arbitration, for instance.

If you want to go further afield, you could
consider whether the observed behavior of any non-human species comes
close enough to a legal system to be worth a paper. An interesting
starting point, although not, I think, an adequate one, might be
Chimpanzee Politics by Frans De Waal. Or you could look at
Konrad Lorenz's books on animal behavior. Or you try to analyze a fictional
legal system, if
you can find one that is well enough described to be
usable.